addriven

Addriven is a neologism used in some software engineering discussions to describe a design or analysis approach in which decisions are driven primarily by addresses—such as memory addresses, hardware I/O addresses, or network addresses—rather than by abstract data values or events. The term blends address and driven, and it is not widely standardized or adopted across the field. It tends to appear in niche or exploratory writings about optimization, locality, and protection mechanisms.

Core ideas

Addriven design treats addresses as the primary keys or drivers for system behavior. In memory- or cache-conscious contexts, this can mean organizing data layouts and control flow to exploit address locality and predictable addressing patterns. In networking or I/O, it may mean routing, access control, or resource allocation that hinges on address-based criteria. Addriven thinking often contrasts with data-driven approaches, which prioritize the content or value of data, and event-driven approaches, which respond to external stimuli.

Applications and examples

Possible uses of an addriven perspective include memory allocators designed to maximize cache hits by allocating objects with proximity in mind, memory safety analyses that track address flows, or security models that enforce rules based on address ranges and capabilities. In networking, address-based policies might govern routing or firewall decisions. In practice, addriven strategies are typically considered in conjunction with other design principles rather than as a standalone paradigm.

Limitations

A key critique is that heavy emphasis on addresses can reduce abstraction, hinder portability, and increase fragility if address schemes change. Debugging and maintenance may become more challenging when behavior is tightly coupled to specific addresses.

See also

Data-driven design, memory locality, locality optimization, capability-based security.